During preparations for her second Olympic Games in 2016, Italian rower Sara Bertolasi began suffering intense pain due to inflammation around her pelvis. The long hours spent rowing on Lake Varese in northern Italy or training on a rowing machine had taken an unbearable toll.

The pain limited Bertolasi’s training and made her consider retirement. Around that time, however, she met Martina Ballerio, the manager of the 3D printing unit at Elmec Informatica, a technology firm based in the nearby city of Varese.

That conversation led to the custom design of a new seat for Bertolasi. She sat to have a cast made that incorporated the different phases of a rowing stroke, emphasizing ...